Puppet Strings and Wooden Things
by Irena K
Summary: But Pino was not a little girl and so she never pretended to travel to far off lands.


Disclaimer: They belong to Manglobe.

Feedback: is a girl's best friend. Constructive criticism is, as always, actively encouraged.

Spoilers: The entire series.

Notes: Originally written for Yuletide 2008.

Rating: PG for language and possible pretentiousness.

Special thanks to meganbmoore for the super-quick beta.

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PUPPET STRINGS AND WOODEN THINGS

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**i. all the good little toys**

Once upon a time, in the great, shining city of Romdo, a little girl named Pino lived with her Mama and Papa.

Well, she wasn't really a little girl and her Mama and Papa weren't really her parents and the great, shining city of Romdo hid a dark, ugly truth under its light, but don't fret too much about it.

Pino's Papa was not a prince or a duke or a earl or royalty of any sort. However, he was Very Important to the city of Romdo and so did not spend very much time with Pino or Mama as he had, he said, Very Important Things To Do. Therefore, it was mostly only Pino and Mama living in their large home with its twisting hallways and giant windows and strange nooks that little girls could pretend were passageways to even stranger lands.

But Pino was not, as I said, a little girl and so she never pretended to travel to far off lands or imagined a prince riding to her rescue on a white horse or thought about becoming Very Important herself when she grew up. However, she was quite good at being a Pino and so she would follow Mama about as Mama did the things _she _was good at. Pino would hold the laundry basket or watch the oven bake dinner or calculate the median household income for the year or ask many, many questions, like "Mama, why do you wear such high heels?" Or "Mama, why do you change your hair color?" Or "Mama, why is Mr. Banks sleeping in Papa's bed?"

She never asked anything she wanted to know because she never wanted to know anything. But Pinos were supposed to ask questions and ask questions she did, even if she didn't care one way or the other about the answers.

Mama would answer anyway, regardless of Pino's lack of feeling on the matter. Sometimes she would tell the truth and sometimes she would tell her to be quiet and sometimes she would say, "Turing application off." Then Pino would stand in a corner and not be anything for a while.

Things stayed the same for a very long time (2.38 years, to be exact). Papa worked, Mama looked after the house and Pino did as she was supposed to. When Mama brought home a baby, she even did an excellent job of being a Big Sister, once Mama let her get close enough to Little Brother to engage her expansive sibling subroutine.

One day, Mama took Pino and Little Brother to a giant mall, a place filled with all the wondrous things the citizens of Romdo deserved. They had done this many times before and likely would have done so many times in the future had not a monster chased a man directly into the crowd.

The man wasn't really a man and the monster wasn't exactly a monster, but we'll get to that in a bit.

Many people died in the path of their fight and many more screamed. As they passed by Pino, Mama and Little Brother, Mama didn't have time to scream, but she died very quickly. Little Brother died somewhat less quickly but by that point, Pino couldn't see him.

You see, Something Terrible was happening to Pino. Something Wonderful, too, though there were few in the city who would have called it that.

Pino fell to her knees, looked to the heavens and Became Real.

-

**ii. of beasts and men**

The man who wasn't a man had a name and that name, as it turned out, was Vincent Law.

He also had a Great Beast lurking inside him, something grey and ill-tempered and ancient, but most of the time he didn't seem aware of this. In fact, he didn't seem aware of much at all, except for all the times when he was, though it could often be difficult to tell the two apart.

He usually looked at Pino like he couldn't quite believe she was really there. Then again, he often seemed like he couldn't believe he was there, either.

"You don't have to wear the, um, bunny thing every day," he said.

"I know," Pino answered.

"So, why do you?"

"Because."

"Because?"

"Because because."

"... okay, then."

It was a strange thing, Wanting. Liking. Desiring. Pino had never wanted anything before and now that she did, she wasn't always certain how to go about doing it. When she lived in Romdo, she had relied on a Fibonacci sequence of random selections to create the appearance of preference. Now, she found some of the things she had always done she didn't actually like and some that she hadn't, she did. It was all very confusing and it didn't help that the person she most wanted to be around in the whole world seemed to have the same problem.

She often sat at the table aboard their grand flying ship. She couldn't eat, but she liked to watch Vincent do so, while she rested her head on her arms and asked him all the questions she could possibly think of.

"Do you like red?" Pino asked. "I like red."

"It's - it's alright," Vincent said.

"But I like pink more."

"Okay."

"Does Vince have a favorite color?"

"I don't know. Maybe, um, blue?"

"Papa said blue is a boy's color and that's why the nursery has to be blue. Is that why you like blue?"

"Not really. I just... like it."

"Why?"

"I don't know. Sometimes people just like things for no reason."

Pino thought about this for a moment, then told him, "I still think it's because you're a boy."

"Well, girls can like blue, too. I know lots of girls who do."

"Really?"

"Yeah." He smiled then, a secret sort of smile, like he knew something no one else did. "Sometimes it brings out the color of their eyes."

-

**iii. peas under the mattress**

The Princess, when she finally appeared, didn't act much like a princess. She cursed like a soldier, preferred black leather to delicate lace and liked to spend her free time cleaning her gun (an eight-round, Mossberg pump action shotgun, modified). She drank when they very occasionally had something to drink and smoked when they didn't.

She vehemently denied the latter, even though Pino had seen her climb out onto the deck after Vincent fell asleep in order to light up a counterfeit cigarette with an antique lighter. Pino didn't say anything because she remembered Mama yelling at her after she said something that was true when Mama insisted it wasn't. Pino didn't understand why people would ignore how things were because saying something wasn't so didn't make it happen that way. Perhaps this was just another mysterious Grown-Up Thing She Would Learn About When She Was Older.

"You're doing it wrong," Re-l told her.

Pino looked up from the blue eye shadow she'd claimed from Re-l's substantial collection. She frowned. "No, I'm not."

"Yeah, you are." Re-l hunkered down and held out her hand. "Give it." When Pino just stared at her, she snapped her fingers, one, two, three. "C'mon, I'm not standing here all day."

Pino flipped the case over in her hands, one, two, three. "Why?"

"I'm going to do it _right_." When Pino still kept flipping, she snatched the case back.

"Hey!"

"Fucking cogito," Re-l muttered.

"Vincent said you shouldn't say-"

"Like I give a rat's ass what Vincent thinks. Close your eyes."

Pino huffed, but obeyed. Re-l dusted the shadow around the lids, her touch a deft, light kiss. She worked silently for 1.73 minutes and Pino behaved herself the whole time. She didn't once open her eyes, even a little, or employ infrared or ultraviolet visual spectrums.

"Okay, done."

Pino opened her eyes. Re-l held up the small compact mirror for her to see. "You have to follow the contour of the eye, extending out on either side. Then you outline the edge with pencil. Otherwise it gets smudged."

Pino tilted her head from side to side, comparing one eye to the other. "It's crooked."

"What?" Re-l glanced at the mirror, than back at Pino. "No, it isn't."

"Yuh-huh. This one." Pino pointed at her right eye. "Is one millimeter longer on the interior than this one." She pointed to her left.

Re-l rolled her eyes and snapped the compact shut. "No one's going to notice."

"But I noticed."

"My point exactly." She tossed the case back to Pino.

Pino started throwing it in the air and catching it. Up and down, up and down. "My way's better."

"No, it isn't."

"But it's more even."

"Yeah, but – look, that's not important."

"Why?"

"Because it's not always about results."

"Why?"

"Because _how_ you do it matters."

"Why?"

"Because it – it just does, okay?"

"Why?"

"Because – because – oh, for fuck's sake, you're a _machine_. What's the point?" Re-l snatched up her coat. "I'm going."

"Where?"

"Out." Re-l yanked open the door to the deck and nearly ran over Vincent on his way back in.

"Oh. H-hey, Re-l-"

"Shut up." She pushed past and stomped outside. Vincent stared after her for a moment, then turned to Pino.

"What did I say?"

Pino shrugged.

-

**iv. a changeling in the cradle**

Even good little girls made of sugar and spice and everything nice had their bad days. Good little Pinos were no exception to this rule.

Pino screeched and threw her shoes at Vincent. When he tried to grab her, she shrieked louder and tried to kick his shins. But Vincent, slight though he was for a man, was quicker. He slipped to the side and seized her wrists from behind. She struggled against his superior weight, kicking back at anything she could gain traction on. Her squirming finally unbalanced them, landing Vincent flat on his back with a crash.

Re-l stuck her head in from the deck. "What the hell is going on?"

"It's not – it's-" Vincent broke off as an elbow from a still-hysterical Pino almost caught him in the jaw. "Re-l, help!"

"And do _what_?"

"I don't know! Something!" Pino bucked against him again. "Anything!"

Re-l cursed and took hold of Pino's legs, preventing any potential damage they could cause to Vincent. But she wanted to hurt him and show him that he couldn't do this, that all she wanted was to stay and be and why couldn't he see that? She should be and live and it wasn't fair, it wasn'twasn't_wasn't_.

AutoReivs didn't exhaust themselves like humans, though even they tired eventually. Pino's struggles slowed and her screams tumbled into resigned silence. Vincent slowly sat up, holding her gently against his chest. She could hear the steady thrum of his heart beneath her, feel the heat of his body (38.076 degrees Celsius, always a degree or two higher than a normal human). Re-l released her legs as Vincent ran a hand through her hair.

"Finished?" he asked. Pino shook her head, burying her face into his red coat. He couldn't make her answer, he couldn't. "Come on, Pino, what's wrong?"

"Yeah, what is wrong?" Re-l said. "What exactly happened?"

"I don't know. I just – I was telling her she couldn't follow me again in Romdo, that it'd be too dangerous for her and she kept insisting and things... escalated."

Re-l blinked. "You told her she _couldn't_ do something."

"Yeah."

"And rather than acting like an AutoReiv, she had a complete and total meltdown."

"What are you getting at?"

Re-l laughed, a rich, throaty sound. Pino peeked out at her and saw genuine amusement on her face for the first time. Re-l caught her looking and gave her a wink in response, still chuckling.

"What?" Vincent said. "What's so funny?"

"You. Spend all this time treating her like a kid and now you're shocked she took you up on the offer. That, Vincent, was your very fist, full-scale, grand mal temper tantrum."

He gaped. She laughed again.

"Congratulations, 'Dad.'" She clapped him on the shoulder. "It's a girl."

-

**v. ever after**

"And they watched the great, shining city of Romdo return to dust as the new day rose behind them."

"The end?"

"After a fashion, I suppose."

"But what happened to the beast and the princess?"

"Oh, they ran very far away and had many more adventures together."

"Did they live happily ever after?"

"They lived. Which is much better, really, if you must know."

"And Pino? What happened to Pino?"

"Well, she had any number of adventures, too, for a long, long time."

"And then?"

"And then she grew up, in her own way, as all little girls must."

"And what did she do then?"

"Why, whatever in the whole wide world she wanted to do, my dear. Whatever she wanted."

-

END


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